Question

To find the people in the ancestry data set who were young in 1924, the following function might be helpful. It filters out the elements in an array that don’t pass a test.

function filter(array, test) {
  var passed = [];
  for (var i = 0; i < array.length; i++) {
    if (test(array[i]))
      passed.push(array[i]);
  }
  return passed;
}

console.log(filter(ancestry, function(person) {
  return person.born > 1900 && person.born < 1925;
}));
// → [{name: "Philibert Haverbeke", …}, …]

This uses the argument named test , a function value, to fill in a “gap” in the computation. The test function is called for each element, and its return value determines whether an element is included in the returned array.

Three people in the file were alive and young in 1924: my grandfather, grandmother, and great-aunt.

Note how the filter function, rather than deleting elements from the existing array, builds up a new array with only the elements that pass the test. This function is pure. It does not modify the array it is given.

Like forEach , filter is also a standard method on arrays. The example defined the function only in order to show what it does internally. From now on, we’ll use it like this instead:

console.log(ancestry.filter(function(person) {
  return person.father == "Carel Haverbeke";
}));
// → [{name: "Carolus Haverbeke", …}]

This is a book about getting computers to do what you want them to do. Computers are about as common as screwdrivers today, but they contain a lot more hidden complexity and thus are harder to operate and understand. To many, they remain alien, slightly threatening things.